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Help Battery Drain due to Software Bug w/GPS?

Are you able to replicate this same issue?

  • Total voters
    112
ylexot said:
I followed your directions and was not able to replicate it. But let me make sure that I understand the directions properly. When you say, "then read the Running % in Spare Parts", I took that to mean:
Run Spare Parts
Go into Battery History
Select "Other Usage"
Select "GPS Usage"

If that is the correct process, then I could not replicate the 100% GPS usage. If that is not correct, could you explain it a little more?
Click to expand...

While Other Usage is selected if you looked below the "Since last unplugged" text.

You should see Running (100%) or something like that. The GPS tends to make the phone not sleep which will eat up a lot of battery.

Mine says:
Running (51%)
Screen on (26.2%)
Phone on (.2%)
Wifi On (96.9%)
Wifi Running (96.8%)
 
I can replicate it as well. I've been noticing this lately. I've had to restart my phone several times to keep the GPS off, and I've had to toggle it a bunch of times. It's such a huge and annoying bug that I was thinking about reformatting my phone just to see if that fixes it, but after noticing this thread, I'm definitely going to hope that Motorola fixes that with the 2.2 update.
 
Yes, I can reproduce this. About a week after I got the phone, I charged it just before going to bed and it was definitely at 100%. When I woke up, it was dead; don't remember the percentage but the battery was so drained it wouldn't turn on. I've been concerned it would happen again. Now I understand why it drained.
 
lexluthor said:
ylexot, no, you just go into spare parts->battery history and right there on that screen look at "running".
Click to expand...
Ok, I can replicate what you are seeing, but it is not the GPS itself that is running/killing battery. It's the program.
 
Actually, I think it's neither the GPS or the program draining the battery. The GPS is clearly not running or the drain would be much more. In addition, you can even kill the program forcefully that started up the GPS and the phone still doesn't sleep.

It's not like a program is running chewing up CPU cycles. It's just that the phone doesn't sleep and whatever battery savings is derived from the phone typically sleeping is lost. I don't think the drain is huge. Maybe it's decreasing battery life by 20% over the course of the day? I don't really know.
 
I've been playing with Tasker a bit and created a few scenarios. I set a few applications that when launched will toggle the GPS on. Apps like Maps, Navigation, Camera, Foursquare, etc. I set an exit task that toggles the GPS back off once the application is exited. So far so so good using this method. It's not a perfect solutions, but if you have Tasker or Locale or a similar program try setting something like this up and report back with your results.
 
Replicated but THANK YOU!

3 hours off the charger and already at 50% because of this bug. Yesterday I managed to make it home with around 30% left. Extremely light usage both days too, no calls yet today, only checked my email once or twice, and its already half gone.

Installed Spare Parts (been looking for something similar, never knew what to search for though, and no one ever suggested anything, so double thanks for pointing it out) and found that for 3 hours it had not slept at all. Installed Spare Parts and disabled my GPS and here we are 30 minutes later and it has already went from 100% on down to 80% on (didn't reset the counters yet).

They need to seriously fix this, GPS should go off automatically as soon as you close the app that was using it.
 
I guess I never noticed this because when I use maps I turn on the GPS and then turn it off when I'm done with it.
 
Yup, got it to report 100% running time after using maps.

Toggling GPS on/off did disable it however.

Def. a software bug by the looks of it. I've been getting monster use time out of my DX, but I seldom use GPS and if I do I make sure to disable it after whatever program I use needs it.

Good find lex...some may even say you've found the dx's....kryptonite? :cool:
 
I have not tried your test yet, but I just saw this thread and this is I think what has happened to my phone. The first week or so I left GPS turned except when I was going to use an app. After I noticed the GPS icon disappear in the notification bar when I went back to the home page, I just left GPS on and now my battery is dying much quicker than before.

I will test this tonight when I get home from work.
 
4 hours after I found this thread and decided to turn GPS off even though there was no visual indicator that it was being used (nothing in the notification bar, no apps that were running were using GPs), and I JUST dropped to 40% (50% when I found this thread, which was about 3 hours after I unplugged my phone).

So, from 50% in 3 hours, to 10% in 4 hours by making sure I turn GPS off, I had no running apps using GPS since I unplugged my phone, but GPS was still on which prevented my phone from sleeping. And according to Spare Parts, my phone has been running ~45% of the time its been unplugged. That 45% matches pretty well with the 3 hours that having GPS on prevented my phone from sleeping.
 
bumpylemon said:
i got 100% percent running too. my battery last literally 5 hours....with little use...little as in maybe a 5 min phone call...a few emails...and a map or 2....im not joking.


im on my second battery
Click to expand...

I have this problem too. It worked great for the first few days when it was new, now I have to charge it at least 3x/day. :confused:
 
lexluthor said:
No. same thing happens with different gps programs. I tested with poynt too.
Click to expand...


Just tested this and it does show phone running at 100%. I use tasker with Poynt. Rebooted the phone and turned off GPS and Wifi all together and will see if the usage drops down. But ultimately my battery life is lasting through the workday so i'll probably keep using it, and I plan on an extended battery anyway as soon as it's released.
 
CriticalMass said:
Just tested this and it does show phone running at 100%. I use tasker with Poynt. Rebooted the phone and turned off GPS and Wifi all together and will see if the usage drops down. But ultimately my battery life is lasting through the workday so i'll probably keep using it, and I plan on an extended battery anyway as soon as it's released.
Click to expand...


Running time down to 22%.

Problem verified.
 
It's not just Motorola, several Samsung phones have had the same bug. It might be an Android bug.

I thought I would finally be able to stop fiddling with my gps once I got away from Samsung, but after seeing my "Phone On" sitting at 100% all of the time, I guess not.
 
Folks,

I heard back from the person at VZW. They couldn't repeat the issue, but will forward it to tech. Here's what she said to me:

Steven,

I got your email and frankly it stumped me. I'm using the phone and I don't have this issue nor do any of my colleagues. I can't tell you it doesn't exist but I'll need to do some more research on it. I use Advanced Task Killer on my phone and I turn off the GPS on my phone so I've not experienced the battery drain. I'll pass this on and see if our technicians have any comment.

Sincerely,
xxxxxx



Hope this helps,
Steven
 
That's ridiculous. 29 out of 31 people here have verified this. If he follows the exact procedure, I'm sure he'll see it.

Do you know if he actually tried the procedure I laid out?

They have to be misunderstanding the issue.

Thanks for the update either way.
 
Steven58 said:
Folks,

I heard back from the person at VZW. They couldn't repeat the issue, but will forward it to tech. Here's what she said to me:

Steven,

I got your email and frankly it stumped me. I'm using the phone and I don't have this issue nor do any of my colleagues. I can't tell you it doesn't exist but I'll need to do some more research on it. I use Advanced Task Killer on my phone and I turn off the GPS on my phone so I've not experienced the battery drain. I'll pass this on and see if our technicians have any comment.

Sincerely,
xxxxxx



Hope this helps,
Steven
Click to expand...

Thats why she doesn't have the issue.
 
I don't think it was ever confirmed if this bug existed on the original Droid with 2.1, so not sure if seeing if Droid with Froyo has the bug or not gets us anything.

I did receive a reply back from my Motorola support ticket, but it just referenced me to look at their standard documents to troubleshoot battery problems.

I replied back urging them to pass this along to management/engineering, but I've probably reached a dead end with them.

I think we just have to hope this is fixed in the Froyo build we are going to get.
 
lexluthor said:
That's ridiculous. 29 out of 31 people here have verified this. If he follows the exact procedure, I'm sure he'll see it.

Do you know if he actually tried the procedure I laid out?

They have to be misunderstanding the issue.

Thanks for the update either way.
Click to expand...
...and one of the two who could not verify was me before I understood the issue ;)
 
it is definitely something with the gps...or the way 2.1 is running the gps...i had thought i was having trouble with the gps draining the battery before, but i just attributed to being in the middle of a lab building (lots of interference)...i saw this yesterday and it made sense and I also reproduced the issue. phone ran at 90-100% when gps was used and then supposedly off. since replicating, i have had the gps turned off all day today, and i am only at 50% battery drain for the day. before today i would have had to charge my phone twice by now.

oh yeah and i've been running my wifi and pandora ALL DAY, i don't mean a little, i'm talking the last 5 hours steady and i'm still at 50% battery...

there has to be a way to escalate this. @lexluthor, it sounds like moto hasn't idenitfied this problem and thats why you got that...also, i think this is just an instance of android not playing nice with the phone, I don't know if its google's fix or moto's fix. and I doubt froyo will fix this if its not identified to them before they release the software build because the way the os accesses the gps is probably pretty standard from phone to phone and thats probably not a section of code they are looking at upgrading...

Lex this was a great catch on your part, cause the battery drain is the only problem i have had with my phone...

i've also noticed that since i've had the gps turned off, my phone has not gotten ******edly hot in my pocket. over the last couple of weeks pretty much once or twice a day i have to put my phone on my desk cause its burning my leg. and like i said before, i've been running wifi and pandora all day.

spare parts says,
running 88.7%
screen 7.4%
phone 0
wifi on 100%
wifi running 100%

unplugged since 8:36am, its now 3:15pm est
 
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